1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cancer therapy and more specifically to tumor vaccines.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vaccines are injections of substances designed to activate the patient's immune system in order to attack a specific target, such as a cancer cell. Scientists have experimented with using tumor cells as vaccines for the past 30 years. The theory is simple; vaccinate a cancer patient with tumor cells and the vaccine will induce an immune response that destroys tumor cells throughout the body. Unfortunately a major barrier called immunosuppression limits the efficacy of this technology. Immunosuppression happens because most tumor cells produce molecules that allow the cells to hide from the immune system, preventing the development of clinically effective immune responses.
The patented NovaRx technology helps to overcome this immunosuppressive barrier. We observed that a molecule called transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) is one of the most potent immunosuppressive molecules produced by tumor cells. Our technology blocks the immunosuppressive effects of TGF-β in the vaccine, rendering the vaccine more potent.
Our scientists were the first in the world to demonstrate that the innovation of blocking TGF-β rendered tumor cell vaccines more effective. In a study published in the prestigious scientific Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they showed that this technology was able to completely eradicate rapidly growing tumors in an animal model. They later extended this finding to the treatment of patients with glioma (brain cancer) and lung cancer. In other work, NovaRx researchers have also demonstrated that inoculation of colorectal cancer patients with allogeneic tumor cells induced immune responses that recognized and targeted the individual patients' tumor cells. However, because of the expression of immune suppressive in the vaccine cells therapeutic effects did not occur.